W-Komura 35mm f/2.8

The W-Komura 35mm f/2.8 was one of the four lenses with which Sankyo Koki opened its Komura line for the Nikon rangefinder in the late 1950s — alongside the 80mm f/1.8, 105mm f/2.8 and 135mm f/3.5 — and it answered a real gap: third-party glass for the Nikon S system was always scarce, and this was one of a tiny pool of 35mm alternatives to the W-Nikkors. Finished in black with wide chrome stripes and carrying a small “N” on the barrel to mark the Nikon fitting, it came with an external finder and case, though an S3 owner can skip the finder entirely — the body’s built-in 35mm framelines pair with the lens directly. Komura 35s as a class are not hard to find, but the f/2.8 is the less common version, and Nikon-mount examples are pretty rare.

Sankyo Koki was founded in 1951 and adopted the Komura brand name in 1955, going on to build lenses in nearly every mount of consequence before ceasing in 1980. Its Nikon S-mount line ran from the late 1950s into the early 1960s, using the same “N” barrel-marking convention as Tanaka’s Tanar lenses, though some late lenses left the factory unmarked. Dating the 35mm f/2.8 precisely is harder than it should be: the Leica-screw version is dated to 1958 and stayed on sale until 1969, but no surviving document pins down the year the Nikon-mount version itself appeared. The record is thin all around — no production figures survive, no S-mount price list has surfaced, and even the optical construction is undocumented, with a six-element, four-group figure circulating unconfirmed.

In the hand the lens has one habit that trips up Nikkor users: the aperture ring turns in the reverse direction to Nikon’s own lenses, a recurring irritation when swapping between the two mid-roll. The barrel itself was not entirely fixed either — at least two versions of the S-mount barrel have been observed, one wearing a silver aperture ring and no N or C engraving at all. On film the character is squarely vintage: the one substantial review, at 35mmc, finds it at its best on black and white film with pleasing contrast, color shifted toward exaggerated hues, very little vignetting wide open but — counterintuitively — some when stopped down, and flare that almost never appears yet stages a dramatic “aurora” display, not to the reviewer’s taste, when it does. The verdict there is affectionate all the same: a hidden gem, and for a classic Nikon rangefinder owner wanting a solid 35 with its own personality, one of very few doors in.